Archived News:

Friday, Jun 10, 2011

RAGE has suffered a bit of a delay, as the game's official website for now reflects a new October 4, 2011 release date for id Software's upcoming first-person shooter on all platforms. The game was previously expected in the U.S. on September 13th, and in Europe on September 16th, so the presumably the new European date is October 7th. The delay is so-far unannounced, so it is unexplained.

Now it is easier than ever to find your friends on Steam. Just link your Facebook profile with Steam and see your friends who have done the same. Don't worry, we won't post anything to your Facebook wall without your approval.

This clip and this clip offer a total of 14 minutes of footage of players enjoying hands-on time with Battlefield 3 at E3. The clip includes some ShakyCam views of action on the screen and interviews with the players to get firsthand impressions, including points of interest like thoughts of an expert pilot on the jets. Thanks Ant via CrunchGear.

This trailer (NSFW) offers the E3 presentation for Far Cry 3, the first-person shooter sequel in development at Ubisoft Montreal. The clip is narrated by producer Dan Hay, who offers all the thrills of attending the show without the bathroom lines and journalist aroma. Dan describes the game's storyline, setting, and the "scary cast of characters" players will encounter. Along the way we get to see an extended cinematic leading to gameplay (which was pretty obviously played on a console), showing the option of choosing to be stealthy, or to take a more direct approach. Here's the embedded version. Continue here to read the full story.

We are working on Minecraft Beta 1.7, which I’m referring to as the “adventure update”. We’re keeping the details secret so people can get surprises. The idea with this update is to flesh out the game a bit, making it reward exploration and combat more. Assuming we like them in play testing, pistons are coming in 1.7.
[…]
We’re starting the modding support on a small scale with 1.7. We’ll be giving the source code out to a very VERY small group of people before the release of 1.7. We’ll use those experiences to work out the final details, then we’ll get the modding api out as soon as possible after 1.7 has been released.

"Gaikai as well as OnLive, they're pioneers in that [area]. But I also think that [current cloud gaming solutions] can be dangerous in a way, from a business perspective," Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli told Gamasutra at E3. "...I have concerns about the way it's approached, but I think cloud gaming is the future, inevitably."

The Battlezone II Website offers another unofficial beta patch for the action/strategy sequel created by Nathan Mates and Ken Miller, two of the game's original programmers who have continued to offer support over the years. The new patch brings the game to public beta version 1.3.6.1, reducing lag/warp in multiplayer games and offering various other fixes and optimizations.

We've received reports from several readers about a note they received from Codemasters about a hacking incident, which has Codemasters.com offline until further notice. In many cases they have reason to believe personal details have been compromised, but not payment information. The entirety of the message follows. Continue here to read the full story.

Official Xbox 360 Magazine has a video of Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux discussing the E3 showing of Fable: The Journey, admitting this was another of his errors in judgment speaking with the press. Aided by a wall acting as a whiteboard (but unfortunately not by a separate microphone), he explains that the upcoming installment in the series is not a rail shooter, in spite of looking like just that during the show: "My name is Peter Molyneux, and I made a horrendous mistake on the press demo, on the press briefing demo, of taking out the navigation allowing players to move. I'll just state on record now, Fable: The Journey is definitely not on rails. All these journalists [gestures at scribbles on the wall] have signed the wall and agree with me..." Thanks MCV.

I'm very psyched for this weekend, as MrsBlue picked up a beautiful prime steak for the grill. As you may know, one of the reasons steakhouse steaks are better than those made at home is that it's difficult to find meat above choice grade at the local market, so this will be a treat.